Man To Man
by Hidge
Summary: Matthew Taylor knows that it's finally time for him and Jackson Avery to have a conversation. Post 10x02 - "I Want You With Me." Please R&R!


**A/N: So, I could say a lot of things about last night's episode but I'm going to stick with: let's hang in there guys! lol.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own this show or these characters, clearly.**

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Matthew grinned as he set April back down on the ground. They were still engaged, and he was still a tad sceptical, but mostly he was just overwhelmingly happy. It felt nice to get the girl.

He was aware that she still hadn't said those three important words. She had yet to tell him that she loved him, but he was hopefully optimistic. He believed that it was possible to love two people at the same time, and if anyone had enough room in their heart for two people, it was April Kepner, so he hoped that she could fall in love with him too. Maybe it would just take a little longer than it had taken him to fall for her.

He kissed her softly on the mouth before he pulled back to gently cradle her face with his hands. "Where's your ring?" He asked with a smile.

"Oh! Of course!" She reached inside the front of her scrub top and pulled off a clip that she had attached to the material. "It's here," she declared. "And it's beautiful. I didn't tell you that before." She slipped the diamond ring on her finger and then rested her left hand on his chest. "Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?" He questioned quietly as his brow crinkled in confusion.

For wanting her. For loving her. For putting up with her.

"For being you," she grinned.

He smiled back happily and threaded his hand through hers. "You're welcome."

"Can we go home now?" She asked impatiently. "I mean, can we go to your place? I feel like I've been in this hospital for a month and all that I want to do is curl up in your bed."

He chuckled quietly, "Yeah, we can go back to my place. You go change and check on the ER, I have to talk to one of the guys about something."

She nodded and so they parted ways after leaving the chapel. He realized that he had been extremely vague and cryptic, but it was the best excuse that he could come up with. He didn't need to talk to one of his guys. He needed to talk to Jackson Avery.

He found the plastics surgeon on the third floor in front of a nurses' station.

"We need to talk," he declared firmly.

They both needed to get things off their chests.

Jackson glanced up from his chart and looked at the paramedic like he was a pest. "What about?" He grumbled.

Matthew rolled his eyes. They only had one thing that they could possibly talk about. "April."

Jackson pushed his chart aside and faced Matthew with an angry expression. He was already having one of the worst days of his life and April was the last person that he wanted to talk about. April was the last person that he wanted to _think_ about.

"I don't really know what happened between you two before and I don't know what happened between you two tonight, but she loves you," Matthew told him earnestly. The other man opened his mouth to interrupt but he raised his hand and trudged forward. "She does, I don't know what you think but I know that she does. She really does. I'm not completely oblivious, I can see it." He paused and sighed sadly, "I can see it because she looks at you the way that I look at her, and I don't know what you said to her tonight but it sent her back to me so I need to know something. I need to know if you're going to be an honourable guy about this. I need to know that in a week from now, or a month from now, or heck, ten years from now, you won't come to your senses, man up, and tell her that you love her too."

He loved the trauma surgeon more than he thought that he would ever love anybody. He actually felt his stomach flutter and his heart skip a beat whenever he saw her. She brightened his day and he thought about her whenever they weren't together. But he now loved her fully knowing that she loved somebody else, and that was tough. And he wasn't sure what he would do if Avery came back into the picture in a big way.

He was pretty sure that he would still fight for her.

Instead of responding directly to Matthew's words, Jackson snapped defensively. "I don't owe you anything."

Matthew sighed heavily, "That's exactly what I thought." The guy was in love with her too. He just didn't want to admit it to her, or to himself, for some reason.

"Look," Jackson began through gritted teeth. "I am exhausted and irritable and the very last thing that I want to do right now is have this pointless conversation with you. So if I were you, I would leave before I get the chance to do something that I've wanted to do for a very long time."

Matthew scoffed, "What are you gonna do? Fight me?"

Jackson stepped closer to him so that their chests were almost touching and his hands involuntarily clenched at his sides. "Maybe I will."

Matthew felt a rush of adrenaline and he couldn't help but release a chuckle at the ridiculousness of the situation. It had always amused him how two men could revert back to careless, teenage boys when a woman was involved. He understood the motivation much more clearly now.

He had a good feeling that he could take the pretty boy in a fight though. He had the size advantage at least. He held Avery's gaze as he stated calmly, "I'd like to see you try, especially with that dislocated shoulder."

The dark-skinned man surged forward and body checked Matthew with his good shoulder. "Get the hell out of my hospital."

"You're such a jerk, Avery," he replied as he regained his footing. As much as he wanted to fight the spoiled little brat, he couldn't for a number of reasons. They were in a professional environment, and as much as he hated it, Avery did carry a lot of weight around here.

And he couldn't fight a guy that his fiancé was in love with.

So he spoke pityingly instead. "You're such an idiot, and I feel bad that you can't let yourself love her. I don't know who messed you up so bad but I'm sorry."

Jackson made a move to lunge forward again but a small voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Matthew?"

Both men turned around and faced the petite trauma surgeon that they were both head over heels for.

"What's going on?" She inquired shakily.

She asked her question directly to Matthew, she couldn't even look at Jackson. He knew that his earlier words had hurt her but it still hurt him to see that she couldn't even make eye contact with him. He hated hurting her but he had been _so _angry and he just couldn't do it anymore.

Matthew spun around to face her and plastered a smile on his face. "Nothing, we just had a disagreement on first responder policy."

April shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Okay, well, I'm ready to go."

He walked towards her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Okay, let's go."

They started to walk down the hallway but Jackson didn't miss Matthew's parting look of warning. He wanted him to back off and Jackson wasn't sure if he could do that, no matter how much he wanted to. He and April always had a way of falling back together.

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**A/N: ****Weirdly enough, I like getting inside Matthew's head. Lol.**

******Please leave a review! (This will probably remain a one shot! Unless future episodes inspire me to write more Matthew/Jackson confrontations.)**


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